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I just want to know what could you recommend a script to backup Windows server?

I tried to use the normal Amazon API command line stated below and it’s working fine. However, when I restore the snapshot file, it didn’t work correctly.

/opt/aws/bin/ec2-create-snapshot vol-xxxxxxxx -d "System Drive"

I would appreciate any recommendation for backing up Windows instance.

James

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  • How are you "restoring the snapshot file" ? Oct 8, 2012 at 17:34
  • @MattHouser, Restoration will be done by creating a new volume based on that snapshot file and register a new AMI for that volume.
    – James W.
    Oct 9, 2012 at 1:08

1 Answer 1

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Windows AMIs cannot be created from EBS snapshots. Only Linux AMIs can be created this way.

For Windows instances, you should create the AMI directly from the EC2 instance using

ec2-create-image

If you want to restore an instance from an EBS volume:

  1. Create a new volume from your snapshot
  2. Launch a new Windows instance from an AMI that matches your original instance as much as possible
  3. Stop your new instance and replace the root volume with your restored volume
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  • when using ec2-create-image does it create EBS snapshot file and AMI? If yes, could you recommend any script that will do a clean up of EBS snapshot and de-register AMI? Thanks
    – James W.
    Oct 9, 2012 at 2:08
  • By the way, for daily cleaning up of EBS snapshot, I am using ec2-prune-snapshots script which is really effective but for de-registering AMI I am looking how to do that.
    – James W.
    Oct 9, 2012 at 2:11
  • Creating an AMI creates both an AMI and snapshots (one for each volume). The snapshots cannot be deleted as long as the AMI exists. Oct 9, 2012 at 13:41
  • I tried to test to de-register an AMI and the snapshot is still exist. In this case I have to manually remove the snapshot.
    – James W.
    Oct 10, 2012 at 1:15
  • De-registering an AMI image does not delete the snapshots. You must delete them after de-registering your AMI image. Oct 11, 2012 at 15:45

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